


Mission Accompliced

by elementarydearmy



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elementarydearmy/pseuds/elementarydearmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alanna's mission was going swimmingly . . . until George showed up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mission Accompliced

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grav_ity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grav_ity/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta, ancarett for helping smooth out the kinks in this story. Hope you enjoy!

Alanna smoothed out the non-existent wrinkles in the long violet dress she was wearing. Her red hair was tucked under the familiar black wig, and make-up was splashed generously across her face to give that final feminine touch. 

 _No one will recognize me._ She thought to herself. _No one knows I’m here, no one here knows who I am, and this will go off without a hitch._

Jonathan had sent her out on a mission to investigate one of the small fiefs near Tusaine which he suspected was dealing with slave-trafficking, something which was strictly forbidden in Tortall. It was a simple mission: just in-and-out get the information and go, something Alanna had done dozens of times before.  But ever since leaving Corus, Alanna had felt a deep sense of unease in the pit of her stomach. The familiar feeling of being followed had settled in, and she quickly became paranoid after she hadn’t lost the feeling in the first two days of her travels. She was certain it couldn’t be anyone from the fiefdom that she was looking into, she would have been able to lose any lackeys they had or hired, but the certainty that she was being watched remained.

 _Even if they had followed me I’m disguised now and they wouldn’t recognize me unless they knew me._ After a few more seconds of reassurance, Alanna gathered up her courage and scanned the room for the fief’s lord.

Jonathan had given her specific instructions: flirt with the lord, get him drunk, and talk him into telling her what he was hiding. “Don’t do anything reckless don’t get yourself noticed,” he had said, levelling her with a glare. The king had explained that her target would be easy to spot: a large, dark-haired man with an overabundance of jewellery.

Her eyes scoured the room for someone meeting that description but couldn’t find him. _He’s probably just late. Don’t draw attention to yourself and everything will go perfectly fine._

A page passed by carrying a tray with goblets of wine, Alanna snagged herself a glass and took a generous sip. At the same moment the sense of unease bubbled back up in to her stomach, when she felt the set of eyes watching her again.

 _Calm down, no one even knows you’re here besides Jon. Excepting George, there’s no one who could follow you, besides some of Jon’s more talented men at arms. No one would follow you but-GEORGE!_

With an enraged growl, Alanna spun around and her eyes met her husband’s, twinkling from across the room. George Cooper smiled jovially and wiggled his fingers in a mock wave.

 _Of course,_ Alanna thought to herself, _who else could track me thus far without my notice, who else knew I was here! Who else would be that stupid!_

The wine glass clutched much too tightly in her hand, Alanna heaved up her skirts and stomped angrily across the room to where George was lazily leaning against the wall. All through her approach, he smiled mischievously at her.

His smile only grew when she hissed angrily under her breath, “What in the Goddess’ name do you think you’re doing here?”

“This little thing? I was invited months ago.” George gave a sarcastic wave of his hand. “I wasn’t going to go but…it seemed that I had nothing better to do so here I am. Fancy running into you here, I thought you were looking into something for the king.”

Alanna knew her face must have grown red with fury. She had to bite her tongue to keep from yelling in outrage, contenting herself with an almost inaudible hiss. “You know very well why I’m here George. How dare you follow me! My whole plan could be ruined now, thanks to you!”

He chuckled. “You caught on to that, did you? Well, I knew that if you found out I was coming, you’d have turned me right back to Corus. Am I right?”

“I’m turning you back now George! Go back, right now!” Alanna snarled.  

He leaned in close, so close that she could feel his warm breath ghosting over her ear as her spoke. “But where,” he murmured, “would the fun be in that?”

She sent him a scathing glare. “This isn’t supposed to be fun! I’m working, George. And my cover may as well be blown now, thanks to you.”

“Well then, I guess I’ll just have to stay and help you,” her husband said, slipping a hand around her waist and tugging her rather gracelessly into the middle of the grand ball room. Without her consent, Alanna was twirled around in between the dozens of other couples already there, giving an uncharacteristic girlish shriek of dismay when George swung her in to a low dip.

“George, I’m serious! I have to find out what’s going on here and I can’t do it if you’re distracting me!” She peered over his shoulder, and she thought she may have caught a glance of the fief’s lord before George spun her around again.

“Well maybe I can help. What are we looking for exactly?”

With another spin Alanna saw the lord: a tall man with well-groomed dark hair and covered in gold jewellery studded with multi-coloured, expensive gems. He was talking in a hushed voice with a few of his men. 

“Stop spinning me George!” she hissed.

“What you don’t like it-“

“No, George, shut up! He’s right there, the man I’m supposed to be investigating!” Alanna nodded discreetly towards the lord who was now leaving with his guards, not out of the public entrance, but out one of the servants’ doors.

“That’s weird. Why would he be leaving out of the servant’s doors? By the way he dresses, I’d expect he would flaunt his exit. It seems rather suspicious don’t you think, George? Wait, George?” Alanna turned and saw the George had left. Well he hadn’t left, exactly, but he was trailing the lord’s steps and sneaking out the door.

Alanna swore under her breath before racing after him, shoving the other dancers and guests out of her way as she threw herself into the doorway. She was met with a long winding staircase, scarcely lit by the rare torch bracketed on the walls. Distantly, she could hear the soft footsteps of her husband.

Alanna hiked up her skirts and bundled the bottom half of them tightly in one hand, freeing the dagger sheathed to her leg with the other, before clambering down the stairs as silently as she could in her decidedly ridiculous attire.

George, on the other hand, was padding softly along behind the lord and his three men in quite a good mood. After traveling down the staircase and through the kitchens, which were surprisingly empty, they had come into a long, empty hallway where George was finally being able to get a better look at them.

The four had very little in the way of weapons; each guard had a sword strapped to his waist and a dagger tucked into their boot. From what he could tell, the lord, himself, only had his own dagger tucked away under his tunic. They would be easy for him to take down on his own, but with Alanna, who he knew had followed him down the stairwell, taking these four down would be a walk in the park.

“My lord,” hissed one of the men, “we must move the slaves. To keep them here is too dangerous, sooner or later the court is going to start suspecting something, and then what shall we do?”

 _So this must be what Alanna was looking into_. He didn’t startle when he felt a tap on his shoulder, he spared a quick glance towards Alanna who was giving him a disapproving look, but he gestured back towards the men as the lord began to shout angrily.

“Don’t question me!” the lord almost shrieked. “The slaves will stay here until I can find someone suitable to trade them to, do you understand?”

The guardsman quavered. “Yes, my lord.”

“Good. Now hurry up, I want to get back to my party.” The four men continued walking before turning a corner and disappearing from sight.

“So I’m assuming that was the information that you wanted.” George whispered to Alanna who was staring in concentration at the end of the hallway. “So what do you say we head back to Corus? If we leave now we can probably get back by the end of the week. Jon can send out his little rescue party.”

George’s voice dropped suggestively. “And then we could have a little _party_ of our own?”

Much to his dismay, though, Alanna ignored him in favour of trailing after the men.

“Alanna, what are you doing?” he demanded, jogging after her as she began racing down the hall to try and catch up with the men.

“Didn’t you hear them?” she said, “They’re right here! The people! We could save them, George.”

Alanna’s face split in to a joyful grin as her pace quickened.

George huffed in annoyance. “Aren’t you supposed to letting Jon deal with this? I’m pretty sure he sent you hear to do espionage work, not to go throwing yourself head first in to the thick of it all.”

“I’m not going to ‘throw myself in head first’ George. I’m going to follow them, find where they’re keeping those poor people prisoners, wait until they leave, free them, then the lot of us will return to Corus, unscathed.” Alanna was quite pleased with herself. She was going to stay undercover and save the day, Jon couldn’t be mad at her then, could he?

As they slipped around the corner, both of them pressed up against the cold stone wall, a door at the end of the hallway slammed shut with an echoing ‘BANG’.

“You do know that it won’t work out like that,” George sighed behind her. “It never does.”

Alanna laughed. “It will work out this time, George. I promise you.”

 

***

 

The lord of the fief was nervous, very nervous. Not only was he hiding over twenty captive men, women, and children, he had a large party with well over one hundred people taking place overhead. Why had he let his wife talk him in to this? The one fortnight that he couldn’t possibly attract attention to himself, and she decided that they must have a ball! He swiped a hand over his face, scrubbing furiously at his eyes.

It had all seemed so simple in the beginning, capture a few travelers who were passing by his fief, and hold them until the Tusaine men from across the border came and paid for them, then took the slaves with them, never to be seen again. But then those two-faced backstabbers backed out of the deal and left him with dozens of people and no buyers. He couldn’t just set them free, for they would go straight to the king with the incriminating news, so he had kept them locked away in one of the large unused pantry room.

He stared absentmindedly as one of his guards jabbed threateningly at one of the prisoners. “The lot of you shut up!” The knife wielding man screamed. “The lord wishes to speak to you all.”

“Thank you ummm….”

“Geoffrey.”

“Yes, thank you Geoffrey. Now, all of you kno-“ The lord began.

“Let us go!”

“Please, I want to go home.”

“You have no right to keep us here; we’re free people of Tortall!”

“Quiet!” The lord screeched, his jewellery jingled loudly on his chest due to his shaking. He took a deep breath before starting again. “You all know that I will not let you go, I didn’t yesterday, I won’t today, and I won’t let you go tomorrow either. Now I just wanted to remind you all, and I do mean all of you, that you need to shut up down here, as I have guests. And if I do hear a peep out of any of you, I don’t care if it be man, woman, or child, I will let Gregory here have at you.” He gestured to the man still wielding the knife dangerously.

“Geoffrey.”

“What?”

“My name’s Geoffrey, my lord,” the man mumbled.

“Ah, yes! I will let Geoffrey have at you!” The lord smiled smugly and turned to leave but was stopped in his tracks by the loud cry of a child.

“Wanna to go home!” The little girl shrieked in the arms of the man holding her. “Wan’ mama!” The man holding her tried to shush her but the lord’s expression had already turned thunderous.

“Geoffrey, maybe we should show them what we do to those who disobey,” the lord growled.

Geoffrey chuckled flipping the knife back and forth between his hands, stalking closer to the child as she continued to sob.

“She’s just a baby! You can’t! She doesn’t know any better!” The man holding the child shouted further warnings as he clutched the little girl to his chest.

Geoffrey raised the knife towards the little girl, all the while smiling gleefully as his arm swung down in a wide arc towards her when…

“This doesn’t seem to be the bathroom George!” Alanna announced sarcastically, surveying the scene in front of her.

“It would seem that we took a wrong turn,” George replied, strolling lazily into the room.

“What are you doing here? Guards? Get them!” the lord yelled.

“Well, this just won’t do,” Alanna said, drawing her dagger from out behind her as two of the men raced towards them.

“So this isn’t jumping head first in to the thick of things?” George joked.

“Of course not,” Alanna replied before side-stepping the approaching guard.

The man, who had been attempting to bowl her over, tripped forward with his momentum and stumbled, giving Alanna the chance to swipe her dagger up along his side, drawing a loud cry from him. He fell to the ground, clutching his now bleeding side, which gave Alanna the opening to kick him hard in the back of the head, knocking him out instantly.

The guard fighting George, on the other hand, seeing what happened to his comrade, swung violently out towards George with his knife, in hopeless attempts to cut George’s face and neck. George grabbed the guard’s hand and twisted it so that the man was now spun around with his arm held at an awkward angled behind him. With a heave George sent the man flying to the ground, where, with a ‘Crack’, the man landed on his head and he, too, fell unconscious.

He turned to find Alanna smirking at him, pointing at her dagger which was now lodged squarely in the man’s back.

“Tsk, tsk, George. One must always watch one’s back,” she chuckled.

“Of course, _Sir_ Alanna,” he saluted jokingly.

“Alanna!”

“The knight?”

“She’s come to save us!”

The cries and hushed whispers arose from the crowd of captives, who were all staring at Alanna with looks of awe and surprise.

“So the king sent his lady knight to come after me,” the lord chucked without humour. “Well, I’m afraid I cannot let you or your friend leave alive now. I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

He sighed as he pulled out a long dagger - _more like a short sword_ thought Alanna scornfully - from under his tunic and waved it around with a skilful hand. “Let’s see if you live up to your tales, Lady Knight.”

Unlike his guards, the lord knew what he was doing. He didn’t lunge at Alanna but started circling her slowly, taunting her by feinting towards her every few steps.

George took a step towards the man, raising his fists as if to join the fight.

“Don’t you dare George,” Alanna hissed, her eyes never leaving the lord. “I can do this myself.”

He rolled his eyes, but stepped back from the two, nonetheless, as Alanna started circling the lord in turn. The man didn’t seem to be one to make the first move, so Alanna finally caved and jabbed towards his chest with her dagger. She wished desperately that she had brought her sword. Daggers were much too small and brought her much too close to her opponents. That generally gave them the upper hand in a fight due to their height and weight.

The lord seemed to know this and quickly parried her stab, swiping towards her with his weapon and stepping closer to her, forcing Alanna to back towards the wall. With a swing of her leg, Alanna kicked him hard in the shin, causing him to stumble slightly from the pain. This allowed Alanna to twist herself away from the wall, so now she was facing his side. He jumped towards her; Alanna quickly ducked under his arm, and swiped with her dagger at his exposed throat. She missed her target as the dagger slipped and hit his collar bone. The tremor from the impact raced up Alanna’s arm, causing her wrist and hand to ache dully, while the lord grunted in pain. She pulled back and leant forward to stab again, but her dagger met his and they came hilt to hilt.

 _Oh no!_ thought Alanna, as the lord began forcing his weight down on top of her. Alanna tried to push back, but her small stature was no match for his force and soon she was stumbling backwards with the force of trying to keep the blades away from her. With a final shove, Alanna was forced to her knees.

“Now you die, Lady Knight!” The lord smiled as he whipped the dagger to her throat. The steel was cold against her skin, and, as she swallowed nervously, Alanna felt the blade dig into her skin, drawing blood.

“Don’t talk to my wife like that, you bastard!”

With a painful ‘crunch’ the hilt of a dagger collided with the lord’s head. His eyes rolled back up into his skull and he collapsed to the floor, where he lay unmoving as a stream of blood started trickling from his nose.

George held a hand out to Alanna who took it gratefully as she was pulled to her feet. “I said I could handle it,” she grumbled, sending George a dirty look.

“That was handling it? He was going to slice your throat!”

“Well I was getting to it. I didn’t need you to save me.”

“I didn’t save you,” George said. “You saved my skin, so I saved yours. I was just paying back the favour.”

“Yes, repaying the favour that’s what we’ll call it.” Alanna stretched up on her tips toes and placed a kiss on George’s lips.

“Ummm…excuse me? Sir Lady Knight? Can we go home now?” A little blond haired boy tugging on Alanna’s ripped violet skirts.

“Oh yes, sorry.” Alanna blushed scarlet as twenty pairs of eyes stared at her curiously. “I believe there’s an exit in the kitchens: you won’t be troubled any further if I know the loyalty of the lord’s guests. Do you mind if I take you all to Corus? I’m sure King Jonathan would be more then pleased to make room for you in the castle for a few nights, after all your hardships?”

The crowd cried jubilantly at her statement.

“A castle, I’ve never stayed in a castle.”

“Do you think we’ll actually be able to meet the king?”

“Rescued by a knight and then lodged in the Castle, just wait until I tell my sister. . . .”

The crowed bustled past her and down the hall, thanking her and George as they left, the odd one or two giving her a joyful hug or a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

After they all had left and the large pantry had once again grown quiet, George gently grasped one of Alanna’s hands in his own. “So do you still wish that I had stayed home?” he asked.

Alanna smiled, leaning up against his chest while kissing George, long and passionately. After a minute she pulled away and whispered breathlessly to him, “Yes, George. Yes, I do."


End file.
